Bungie Weekly Update - 04/18/2014
Apr 18 - urk

Right before the end of any enormous creative project, it hurts. Everyone's tired all the time and you forget what it's like to drive home while the sun is still up.

But it's always worth it.

This week at Bungie, our inboxes were flaring up with status emails about every facet of the experience. According to the big green font at the top of each page, we are ON TRACK. Those two simple words in repetition are packed with emotion, and even a tiny bit of relief. We’ve been working on Destiny for so long – ages it seems like. For much of the journey, we’ve been trying to figure it all out, pretending that we could predict the perfect outcome and simply execute, knowing all the while that things are never that easy, and never will be. When you have a studio this talented, and this driven, every single moment matters. So, what do we focus on? What is Destiny? Where do we go from here – from this moment – to make sure we’re making something that leaps the bar we’ve set for ourselves?

We have our answers now.

We are hurtling towards September 9th. We are on final approach.

For you, that means the floodgates are about to burst wide open. Earlier this week, we cracked the lid on our pre-alpha build for a few dozen journalists. We nervously hovered, hoping what they saw and played lived up to their expectations for us. We huddled in the aftermath, wondering what they’ll tell you about what we’ve been up to – about the promises we’ve made.

You’ll be hearing from them soon. They’ll be loaded with shiny new assets. It will mark the beginning of your true introduction into the world of Destiny. We hope, more than anything, that you love what you see.

Pre-Alpha itself is just a beginning. It leads us into Alpha proper, and you into Beta, but it’s already keeping us up late into the night. Though we’re bleary-eyed and exhausted with the day-to-day challenge of keeping Destiny ON TRACK, the tiny sampling offered by our Pre-Alpha is already hugely motivating. For many of us, especially those who have never had the opportunity to see what it’s like to ship a new IP, it’s been downright monumental – a testament to what this team is truly capable of and the foundation, we hope, for a game experience we can all feel proud to put our name on and shout, “I made that!”

We talked a big game last year. We were so excited to talk about our future. Now, it’s time to deliver. It’s time to close this out in a way that we will all be proud of. We owe that to ourselves, and to our legacy. But most of all, we owe it to you.

No Mail Sack this week. We know what you want to ask us. We wish we could help you make sense of what’s going on. Sometimes saying nothing is the only right thing to do. Sometimes saying nothing is the hardest thing to do.

We’re sorry for that. We know that you care a lot about our shared history. We do too. It stings to read some of the more charged, emotional responses, but we understand, and we are committed to focusing on our shared future. We believe it will be bright.